Social and political analysts often deal with the state of Serbian society and give explanations as to why it is the way it is. Over the years, various universal justifications and explanations have been formed for why our economy is in a bad state, healthcare is corrupt, young people are aggressive, and the population is mostly frustrated and neurotic. Most of these analyses, in addition to accurately diagnosing the problem, must also offer some kind of solution, which is mostly the responsibility of state institutions or some other parts and circles of society that should take care of it. However, one very important moment, which may lie at the root of all the problems of this society, is skipped by all analyses, for the simple reason that it is about something that cannot be solved institutionally and systematically. Namely, even a cursory look at the front pages of the daily press is enough to see that our society is increasingly lacking basic decency, and that arrogance is growing.
TERRORISM OF JAY'S FANS: This can best be seen from the sporadic incidents that are only paid attention to by the tabloids. The last such example is the fight that broke out at the concert of Dzej Ramadanovski on May 31 in the Belgrade Arena. The children of the protected witness Ljubiša Buha Čumet, the late member of the Surčin clan, Zoran Šijan, and Milan Nerančić Limun, who, according to police records, was often associated with the Surčin clan, and in recent years private business. No one knows exactly why the fight broke out after which 24 people were detained. According to one version, there was a conflict between a girl from one lodge and a young man from another lodge, which eventually turned into a mass fight and throwing glasses and bottles. Since the heart also fell on the visitors under the VIP boxes (those who paid for cheaper tickets), the audience started to go outside, and Jay Ramadanovsky accelerated the end of the concert. Another version says that the guys from one VIP box out of sheer drunkenness threw ice, intended for their expensive drinks, on the audience sitting below, which caused a revolt by the team from another box. Whichever version is true, the epilogue is the same: the people who paid tickets to listen to Jay Ramadanowski had to leave the concert early due to other people's arrogance, arrogance and savagery, and Jay Ramadanowski, whatever one thought of him, was unable to do his job as a singer and entertainer honestly and to hold his first big Belgrade concert after many years to the end. In short: a group of 24 people terrorized 13.000 people, as many as were in the Arena that evening, according to the media.
The participants in the fight in the Arena at least had the decency to stay in their boxes. Other visitors could have been hit by a bottle or glass, but it's good that no one's life was directly endangered. The same cannot be said for Kragujevac businessman Zoran Jovičić, whom the general public got to know two weeks ago, when a video of a driver driving in the wrong lane on Kralja Aleksandra Boulevard in front of the House of the National Assembly of Serbia was published on YouTube. In the video, Jovicic can be seen turning the vehicle around and reaching the entrance of the building via the parliamentary plateau, where he crossed the parliamentary steps on one side of the vehicle, before he managed to park the car. It was later found out that the recording was made on October 16 last year, and on May 24, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia filed a criminal complaint against Jovicic, even though the traffic police stopped him immediately after the offense and found that he had 1,98 per thousand of alcohol in his blood. In his defense, Jovicic said that he was driving under the influence of alcohol and sedatives, which he received on prescription due to personal and business problems he had last year. That he must not drive drunk is written in the law, which he may not have had a chance to look at. But, if he drank sedatives, he certainly saw the box they are in, which is clearly marked with a red triangle, and in the instructions it is written that those who drink them are not recommended to drive motor vehicles and machines.
And while the fact that he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs can justify Jovicic to some extent, the same cannot be said for another case that shook the public. An event that sends a message that not only pedestrians and other road users are at risk from arrogant drivers, but also dead people, took place in January of this year. The Zaječar police filed a complaint against Goran Jović, the driver of the Audi, owned by the Directorate for Joint Affairs of the Republic's Bodies, for arrogant behavior and obstructing the investigation of the traffic accident in which Pero Đ was killed. (21). After refusing to stop at the signal of the investigating police officer, Jovic drove his car over parts of the victim's body. With him in the car was Branislava Parezanović, the secretary of Parliament Speaker Slavica Đukić-Dejanović. Neither of them had the right to independent use of the official car, but that did not prevent Jović from invoking some kind of immunity when the police finally stopped him. After eight days, Jović was fired, and Parezanović was rewarded with a move to Milutin Mrkonjić's cabinet. Just a few days after this incident, official driver Zoran Milunović, right across the street from the House of National Assembly, cut six lanes with an official "audi". This time the case was "simpler", so he was fired in just two days.
HOLIDAY IN PRISON: A case that did not cause excessive attention in the media, but which, with its tragicomics, perhaps best illustrates the ubiquitous arrogance of not only individuals but also institutions, happened a little over a month ago in Kuršumlija. The director of the Kuršumlija Tourism Organization, Slavko Ilić, was sentenced to one month in prison for beating a municipal inspector, who was pulled by the nose and hit on the head in the premises of the inspection. Slavko Ilić was reported to the municipal police by a neighbor who said that his dog was bothering him. Inspector Miladija Maksimović went to the field and found that the dog was kept in prescribed conditions, but that it was placed next to the fence, and she ordered Ilić to move the dog in his yard 10 meters from the neighbor's fence. But that angered Ilic and he immediately came to her in the municipal office and attacked her. This was followed by a lawsuit from the Municipal Public Prosecutor's Office. First, the Municipal Court in Kuršumlija issued a verdict according to which Ilić was sentenced to 150 days, suspended for three months. As a mitigating circumstance, the court accepted the fact that Ilić, who was then a councilor in the Kuršumlija Municipality Assembly, was appointed acting director of the Tourist Organization in the meantime. However, based on the appeal of the public prosecutor, the District Court in Prokuplje overturned the verdict and sentenced Ilić to 30 days of effective imprisonment for the criminal offense of assault on an official. The Tourism Organization of Kuršumlije confirmed that the time he spends in custody will be recorded as a thirty-day vacation.
These examples are just a few from the sea of similar ones that fill the newspaper columns every day. What they have in common is that a decent person, who still believes in the existence of order and rules of behavior, wonders: why do they think they have the right to behave that way? When we take into account everything that never reaches the public and that does not scandalize anyone with its scale and consequences, we come to the conclusion that, as a society, we have come dangerously close to what is theoretically called the natural state, which most likely has never and nowhere existed in that form, but it is hypothetically taken for what preceded the emergence of civilized society: a state in which everyone grabs for himself, everyone attacks everyone and takes care only of his own needs. Of course, the Serbian reality is not that cataclysmic, but it is obvious that we have a problem. And thus we return to the beginning of the story: that problem cannot be solved systematically, because elementary decency and taking into account the rights and needs of others are something that is an individual matter, left to the individual. The citizens of Serbia, according to last year's survey by Strategžik Marketing, conducted for the needs of the OSCE and the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia, of all institutions have the most trust in the Church. The same Church fills the newspapers with scandals, mutual friction, and even fights. Violence is acceptable at almost every step: in the Parliament, on the street, at sports events, in schools. It is quite logical that at some point one loses the idea that order, rules and respect for the needs of others exist to make life easier for everyone. No one has died from decency, and it's easy to lose your head because of someone else's arrogance.
